1. Field of Invention
Technical Field. The present invention relates to a system for authorizing monetary transactions for the procurement of goods, services or distribution of currency using a credit or debit transaction card, and more particularly for parental control of spending by a child where a parent is contacted by two-way communications to authorize spending amounts exceeding a predetermined spending limit.
2. Description of Related Art
Background. There presently exists a number of credit or debit transaction card networks issuing particular types of transaction cards to their customers. For example, credit cards such as Visa or Mastercard are well known. In order to authorize a transaction, a merchant will typically contact the issuer of the card in order to receive authorization to apply the cost of the transaction to the customer's account with the issuer.
When a holder of a credit or debit transaction card presents the card to a merchant in order to purchase goods, services or distribution of currency, some form of authorization by the card issuer is typically sought by the merchant to minimize theft and risk of loss to the merchant. One early method of transaction card authorization consisted of the merchant consulting a list of account numbers published by the card issuer or other transaction card institution, e.g., Visa or Mastercard, and the merchant would check the presented card against the numbers on the list. If the account number of the transaction card appeared on the list, the merchant could deny/refuse the transaction or telephone the appropriate card issuer for further information or instructions.
More recently, electronic transaction card authorization networks have been developed. In these networks, the merchant uses a terminal which can read account information encoded on a magnetic strip located on the back of the transaction card. The terminal then automatically calls a central processor, operated by the network which will analyze the authorization request. The call from the terminal is typically routed through a local financial institution or transaction card issuer.
The central processor, upon receipt of the call from the merchant, initiates an electronic data link to the processor operated by the transaction card issuer to determine if the transaction should be approved or refused. The processor at the transaction card issuer may check the status of the account within its database, and generates a response. This response is then routed back to the merchant's terminal, typically in the form of an approval code or refusal code.
Many transaction card issuers issue additional, or ancillary, cards under an account holder's account for use by persons, other than the customer, authorized by the customer. For example, an ancillary transaction card may be issued to a spouse, child, or other dependent relative. When a merchant seeks approval of a presented transaction card, the information accessed by the authorization networks is generally limited to the card customer's account information. Spending limits on the ancillary cards from the account holder's account may or may not be lower than the customer's maximum limits.
An ancillary cardholder may have a predetermined spending limit lower than the maximum authorized for the account holder. When an ancillary cardholder presents the transaction card to a merchant for procurement of goods, services or distribution of currency, if the predetermined account limit is exceeded, a refusal code will be supplied by the central processor to the merchant. Only the account holder may authorize an increased spending limit for an ancillary card. Such approval for increased spending limits for ancillary cards is typically performed by sending a letter to the card issuer or via telephone call from the account holder to the card issuer where security identification and authentication steps must be followed. In this manner, an ancillary cardholder cannot receive authorization to complete the procurement of goods, services or distribution of currency in a timely manner.